China’s Bo Xilai’s supporters set up political party

The Zhi Xian Party named Bo Xilai as ‘chairman for life’, Wang Zheng, one of the party’s founders and an associate professor of international trade at the Beijing Institute of Economics and Management, said. Photo: Handout via Reuters

Beijing: Supporters of China’s disgraced senior politician Bo Xilai, who has been jailed for corruption, have set up a political party, two people close to the development said, in a direct challenge to the ruling Communist Party’s de facto ban on new political groups.

The Zhi Xian Party, literally “the constitution is the supreme authority” party, was formed on 6 November, three days before the opening on Saturday of a key conclave of top Communist Party leaders to discuss much-needed economic reforms, these people said.

It named Bo as “chairman for life”, Wang Zheng, one of the party’s founders and an associate professor of international trade at the Beijing Institute of Economics and Management, told Reuters by telephone.

“This is not illegal under Chinese law. It is legal and reasonable,” Wang said.

A second person, who asked not to be identified but who has direct knowledge of the party’s founding, confirmed the news.

The Communist Party has not allowed any opposition parties to be established since it came to power following the 1949 revolution, so history suggests it will not look kindly on this new party, even more so because its titular head is a former member of its top ranks.

Activists have been jailed in the past for setting up political parties, although parties have never before coalesced around fallen top political figures.

Asked if she was worried she would be arrested, Wang said: “We are not afraid. I don’t think we will be arrested.”

The new party announced its establishment by sending letters to the Communist Party, China’s eight other political parties, parliament and the top advisory body to parliament, Wang said, adding that no ceremony was held.

It also sent a letter to Bo on Friday via the warden of his prison informing him that he would be their “chairman for life”, she said. It was not immediately clear if Bo would agree.

The party was set up because it “fully agrees with Mr Bo Xilai’s common prosperity” policy, according to a party document seen by Reuters, a reference to Bo’s leftist egalitarian policies that won him so many supporters.

Asked if party members included Communists, government officials or People’s Liberation Army officers, Wang said she could not discuss the matter to protect them because it was politically “sensitive”.

History lesson

China’s constitution guarantees freedom of association, along with freedom of speech and assembly, but all are banned in practice. The constitution does not explicitly allow or ban the establishment of political parties.

Wang said school authorities asked her not to go ahead with her plans to form the party, but added that she was not doing anything illegal. She said she had not been approached by the government. The school could not be reached for comment on a weekend.

Bo, once a rising star in China’s leadership circles who had cultivated a following through his populist, quasi-Maoist policies, was jailed for life in September on charges of corruption and abuse of power after a dramatic fall from grace that shook the Communist Party ahead of a once-in-a-decade generational leadership change.

Many of his supporters viewed his fall and the trial as a political plot against him, rather than the consequence of any wrongdoing, and the Communist Party remains worried about his influence.

A Communist Party document circulated this month urged officials to toe the line and learn from Bo’s mistakes, people close to the development said. They were told to fully conform with the party’s decision to expel and prosecute Bo.

Senior party leaders had pushed for Bo to get a long sentence, fearing he could stage a political comeback one day if not dealt with harshly.

China’s Communist rulers have held an iron grip on power since the 1949 revolution, though they allow the existence of eight government-sanctioned non-Communist parties, which were founded pre-1949. Technically, their role is to advise rather than serve as a functioning opposition, ostensibly to give a veneer of democracy.

The Communist Party views the founding of opposition parties as subversion.

One of China’s most prominent dissidents, Xu Wenli, was sentenced to 13 years in prison in 1998 for helping to organise an opposition party, the China Democracy Party.

Xu and other activists set up the party that year, but the government took a dim view and by 2000 Beijing had effectively crushed the nascent movement and locked up its founders and members.

Xu was forced into exile in the US in December 2002.

Bo is imprisoned at the Qincheng penitentiary, just north of Beijing, where fallen members of the elite are incarcerated. He was expelled from the Communist Party last year ahead of his trial. Reuters